The niece of fugitive Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui and one of his employees at a real estate firm have been convicted and sentenced for fraud.

Guo’s real estate firm Henan Yuda Real Estate was also fined 150 million yuan (US$22 million), in a ruling by the Kaifeng Intermediate People’s Court released on Friday.

Guo Lijie, niece of Guo Wengui and deputy manager of the company, was handed a 1½-year sentence, suspended for two years. The company’s chief financial officer Zhang Xincheng was given a two-year jail sentence.

Xiao Yanling, deputy financial officer of the company, was exempted from criminal penalty. All three defendants accepted the judgment and said they would not appeal.

The three employees were instructed by Guo to fraudulently obtain loans worth nearly 1.5 billion yuan between 2008 and 2015 from banks in Henan province, the court found.

Some of the money was used to repay debts or it was transferred abroad or to another Guo family company, Beijing Pangu Investment, it said.

The court said their behaviour had “disrupted the order of the country’s financial management and imperilled its financial security” but they were given a lesser punishment because of their confession and repentance of their crimes.

Guo, who is living in the United States and wanted by Beijing, has made a series of corruption allegations via social media against top Chinese leaders and company officials but has yet to provide evidence to support those claims.

Apart from the cases concerning his company, Guo has been sued by China’s vice minister of housing and urban-rural development Huang Yan, actress Fan Bingbing, journalist Hu Shuli and SOHO China Chief Pan Shiyi following his allegations about a number of celebrities and officials.